


I'll Take Her Laughter and Her Tears

by LateStarter58



Series: Dr Lawson's Casebook: the Tom & Ellie stories [4]
Category: British Actor RPF, Tom Hiddleston - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Pregnancy, Pregnant Sex, Wedding Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 04:49:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17016051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LateStarter58/pseuds/LateStarter58
Summary: Time has passed, and Ellie and Tom are expecting a baby.





	I'll Take Her Laughter and Her Tears

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to An Ever Fixéd Mark, in the Tom and Ellie story. Reading these back I realise that Ellie spends a lot of time crying, but that is not how I see her. She is funny and witty and laughs a lot and is happy most of the time - now, anyway. It’s just that I have written about big emotional events in her life so yes, she does cry when stuff happens. Maybe when I write about her again there will be no tears…

_Here we go again. The 2am two-step._

As quietly and gently as she could, Ellie slipped out of bed and padded carefully into the en-suite, still adjusting to the change in her centre of gravity. She caught sight of her ever-more swelling sixth-month belly and her burgeoning bosom in the mirror as she entered, thanks to a streetlight and the full moon leaking in through the blinds. Needing to get up to pee in the night was one of the less welcome aspects of pregnancy, and it seemed that her baby took a particular delight in dancing on her bladder when it was full. According to the books and what Ellie remembered from her _Obs and Gynae_ placement, the foetus should have sleeping and waking periods by this stage, but unfortunately it seemed that he or she was out of synch with his or her parents.  

_I hope that does not continue once you’re out, you little bugger._

At times like this, when all was quiet (or at least as quiet as London ever got) Ellie could reflect on the transformation which had swept over her life. This time two years ago she was living alone, with only the company of a dying cat. Alone _and_ lonely, with a successful career in medical research but no family around her. Deeply unhappy; in love with someone she believed had never even cared about her. Now she was married to that same man, who, it turned out, had cared very much, and who had come to love her as much as she loved him.

And now, between them, they had made a baby.

Ellie knew that some of Tom’s friends and family felt they were rushing things, but they didn’t know the reason why. Her mother had started the menopause at 40; it was one of the things she had made sure Ellie knew about her medical history. When Ellie told Tom about it he agreed that if they wanted a family of their own – which they both did - then they had better not hang about.  Ellie was 34 when they married, and she stopped using contraception six months after the wedding. It only took three months before she felt the need to buy a testing kit (but then they were trying _very hard_ ). Now here she was sitting naked on the loo at 2am on a stuffy June night, wishing her mum was around as never before.

 

 

Despite the expectations in some quarters, their wedding had been a low-key affair. Tom knew that Ellie would feel the absence of her parents keenly, so he persuaded her that a small do with just the closest friends and immediate family was the way to go. And he was right of course. However little fuss there was, a bride couldn’t help but miss her mother’s love and her father’s arm, but by avoiding much of the traditional pomp and ceremony, it was as enjoyable a day for Ellie as it could be. They were married in the April following their engagement at a beautiful hotel overlooking the beach in Aldeburgh, a place that held special memories for them both, with Tilly and Tom’s best friend as the witnesses. There were only 100 guests, and it was a lovely, informal, laughter-filled day.

Phil and Rob’s present had been Ellie’s wedding dress. Phil, who with his partner had been so instrumental in getting Tom and Ellie together, designed it specifically for her and had it made by some of the skilled craftspeople who worked on his film projects. It was a deceptively simple white silk satin dress, a classic straight silhouette with a fishtail skirt, the highlight being a stunning embroidered waistband decorated with the same spring flowers that were in her hair and bouquet. For their part, Tom’s mum and sisters had done all they could, along with her best friend Tilly to support Ellie before and during the wedding. Diana loaned Ellie a bracelet to wear as her ‘something borrowed’. Tom was deeply touched by the gesture; it was the gift he had bought his mother with his first professional pay cheque.

Tom’s mentor and friend Ken read Shakespeare’s 104thsonnet (‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds…’) at the beginning of the ceremony. There were tears, but they were ones of happiness, especially when the happy couple said their vows, of course. They had both cried then, as had everyone else.  After the legal, formal promises which were moving enough, everybody including Ellie expected Tom to come up with a poem or some Shakespeare. But no, he had written his own:

_‘Precious Ellie, fourteen years ago I lost you. I thought I had been condemned to live without you, but then we found each other again, and the day you said you would give me a second chance was the happiest I had known until then. Then you made me happier still by saying you would marry me, and now here we are. I can’t change the past, but I promise you this: from this day, I will love you, protect you and keep you.  Because without you I am less than half a man. Without you I am nothing. Making you happy is all I care about because when you are with me, and when you are happy, then I am alive. I love you so much my darling, I cannot express it fully in words.  But you know I will show you how much every day for the rest of my life.’_

Everyone in the room was dabbing their eyes when he finished speaking. As for Tom and Ellie, tears were flowing freely down both of their faces. Ellie had also written her own promise, but she struggled to speak for a few moments. Finally she gathered herself.

_‘My darling Tom, you know that I have loved you since the first time I saw you, laughing and singing and dancing that night in Cambridge. I never stopped loving you, even through all the painful times, because, quite simply you were the one.  As the song says, the mate that fate had me created for…  And now we are one, and for the first time in my life I feel whole. You have given me my life back; better than that, you have brought me a new, better life, one I could never have dreamed of having. I promise you that I am yours. Always have been, always will be. Because you are all I have ever wanted or needed. My man, beautiful inside and out, the kindest and the best man I have ever known.’_

No one there was unaware of what had happened between them, so it was unbearably moving for all present. When they danced the first dance that evening the cheering could be heard on the moon. Tom had chosen the song as a surprise: ‘She’ by Elvis Costello. Her surprise for him was a pair of gold cufflinks; one engraved with the date they met, the other with their wedding date. She gave them to him during the evening and he showed everyone in the room. They spent a brief but enjoyable honeymoon in Italy, in a villa on the Amalfi coast overlooking the sea. It was a place Ellie had always wanted to visit, and the smell of the lemon trees would become a treasured memory.

Tom had thought that he could never love Ellie more than he did that day in Aldeburgh, when they pledged their love in front of everyone that mattered in their lives. But he was wrong. The day she told him that she was expecting their baby he adored her more than ever; and when it began to show, when Ellie’s belly began to swell and her breasts, already ample, grew ever larger, he thought she looked like a goddess. A fertility goddess, of course, and he duly worshipped her. The effects on her body only made him want and love her more and more. But it was a source of unhappiness to him that he knew that the only thing he couldn’t change for her was making her sad, even amongst all the joy they shared.

                                   

 Anyone who has lost one or both parents when young will tell you that you never really recover; you just find new ways to live with it. In Ellie’s case, the grieving process was truncated because there were exams to be taken and achievements to be made. Few of her peers understood what she was enduring anyway, so she buried it deep. Ellie needed to do what would have made them proud, and then at Cambridge her life took a turn which meant that she daren’t allow herself to give her feelings free rein. But now she was in a place of safety; both literally and metaphorically in Tom’s arms, she found herself missing them more every day. Grief would wash over her at odd times without warning, but it was only in the quiet times, the still, wee hours or when she was alone that she felt really sad.

Times like now, when the hormones coursing through her meant that her emotions were just below the surface, and the tiredness of the second trimester was weighing her down. She looked ahead to the birth of their child and remembered that this was yet another life event she would be going through without her parents. She sobbed and hugged herself because she felt so bereft when she thought about how they would never know Tom or the baby.  It was an emptiness that even her infinite love for her husband couldn’t fill.

Ellie flushed the toilet and washed her hands. Splashing cold water on her face she peered into the mirror, just making out her exhausted face in the dim light. The sight reminded her of the dark days when she was alone and had the horrible dreams about Tom; she used to look like this in the mornings. But then she turned towards the bedroom and saw the shape of his back as he slept in the moonlight. He was hers now as much as she was his, and she felt her love for him surging up through her. Whatever was ahead of them, they would face it together. Nothing could bring her parents back, but she was with the love of her life, and how many people get that lucky?

The baby seemed to agree, as it did one of the somersaults which always made her want to giggle. She slid back under the sheet and snuggled up to Tom, who was facing away from her. Then the baby kicked, or rather stretched out really strongly and he must have felt it through her abdomen and against his back because he jerked awake.

‘Wha..?’

‘Sorry darling, I think the baby just woke Daddy up. I don’t suppose it will be the last time.’

‘You OK?’ He turned over and pressed his lips to her forehead.

‘Yes, just the usual toilet break.’

Tom kissed her lips and felt the dampness on her face. He knew she had been crying and he enveloped her in his long arms. They kissed again, this time more passionately. He ran his hands up over her bump and onto her breasts. Ellie had been afraid that Tom would stop wanting to make love to her as often as her pregnancy progressed, but the opposite seemed to be true. This was great, because she wanted him more than ever. Better blood flow in her pelvis made for even more mind-blowing orgasms; it was addictive. As she got bigger they had to limit the positions they used, but that wasn’t a problem, and they enjoyed experimenting.

Afterwards they lay together; Tom spooned behind Ellie with his hand on her bump. The baby’s feet drummed against the pressure.

‘Do you think we can do anything about this night-owl? I don’t fancy being awake every night for the next however many years.’

Ellie sighed. Her job was demanding enough without sleep-deprivation.

‘Me neither, but I’m not sure. I’ll talk to Janet.’ Ellie was due to see her midwife next week.

As the baby was still moving Ellie knew she would be awake a while longer. Tom was quiet for a few minutes and she assumed he had dropped off again. But then she felt him snuggling closer and he spoke softly.

‘They would be so proud, you know.’

Ellie knew who he meant.

‘You are amazing. You have this wonderful career, and you did it all on your own. You have made me the happiest man in the world. And now you are having our baby. I think you are incredible and so would they.’

Ellie reached behind and ruffled his hair as he nuzzled against her neck. He always seemed to know what she was feeling, and what to say to make it better.

‘You’re not so bad yourself, rich boy.’


End file.
